Internal emotional experience is what a person feels, as distinct from what observers can see or hear. Research and clinical accounts show that reduced expression does not necessarily mean a complete absence of emotion. Someone with blunted affect may still experience grief, affection, embarrassment, excitement or anger strongly.<\/p>\n
Blunted affect is a reduction in outward emotional expression, including facial movement, vocal variation and gestures. It is one negative symptom associated with schizophrenia, but similar appearances have other causes. Expression and feeling are distinct: a person may experience strong emotions without displaying them in familiar ways.<\/p>\n
Assessment gives the person’s account an important role. Questions about recent events and bodily feelings may be more informative than broad judgments based on appearance. Some people do experience reduced emotional intensity, but this should be established rather than presumed. Depression, dissociation, medication effects and other contributors may need consideration. Recognising the difference between experience and expression prevents harmful assumptions about empathy or attachment. It also supports better treatment discussions: a medicine may reduce distress, cause emotional dulling, alter expression or produce several effects at once, and these outcomes should be described separately.<\/p>\n
Expression, feeling and identifying an emotion are separate abilities. A person may feel something strongly but struggle to name it, or describe it clearly while showing little visible change. Asking about bodily sensations and the meaning of an event can add information. These distinctions support a richer account than a single global judgment that affect is flat.<\/p>\n
Further reading:<\/strong> Research record 30208377<\/a>; Research record 35020936<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Internal emotional experience is what a person feels, as distinct from what observers can see or hear. Research and clinical accounts show that reduced expression does not necessarily mean a complete absence of emotion. Someone\u2026Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[22],"class_list":["entry","author-","has-excerpt","post-624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-symptoms","tag-blunted-affect"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schizophrenia.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schizophrenia.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schizophrenia.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schizophrenia.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/schizophrenia.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schizophrenia.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schizophrenia.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schizophrenia.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}